


I Wish

by karmy18



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015), supercorp - Fandom
Genre: F/F, and kara danvers, but that doesn't mean forever, for now, its all in the wake of the reveal, lena luthor does what she is capable of, so this story starts angsty, that's what this story is, which means leaving national city
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-18 05:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20633627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karmy18/pseuds/karmy18
Summary: In the wake of the reveal that Kara Danvers is Supergirl, Lena Luthor does what she has to do. She does what she is capable of.





	1. Hello My Old Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the wake of the reveal that Kara Danvers is Supergirl, Lena Luthor does what she has to do. She does what she is capable of.

Lena knew better. She had been schooled and trained in all things but love. She had had no intentions of staying in National City for an amount of time. It was about breathing life into her families dying company and then moving back to Metropolis. Home, that’s what she had called it those years ago.

Then a Kara Danvers walked into her office. Lena could label that as the definitive start of it all. She didn’t want to give her all of that power. Lena was supposed to be more than that after all. Lillian had ingrained it to her, logic first, emotions weren’t supposed to matter. They were not even secondary. They were far enough down the list as to be forgettable. That’s where they were supposed to live.

Lena remembered when she had educated Brainy about boxes. There was supposed to be a place for each one. She was so used to them residing within their own spaces. There was no overlap, no everything was where it was supposed to be.

It had been that way. She had been so good to living up to her own words. But Kara, Kara had a way of changing things and changing people. Lena knew deep down that she was one of those people who had been changed by her. Sure she had been saved by Supergirl more times than she would like to count. But she had said it herself, Kara Danvers was her hero. She was. The story could have stopped and started there. It didn’t.

She could have realized that she was done for when she no longer had a hard return date to Metropolis. But Lena didn’t let herself think twice about it. It was sometime in the near future she had promised herself that much. After all the entire reason that she had come to National City was a success. The rebranding of Luthor Corp to L-Corp had revitalized the company. There stock had soared and stayed at a secure value. The board could not negate the numbers she was putting up. So Metropolis stayed in the future. Lena wasn’t aware that she was putting roots down. Kara laid them for her.

First it was little things. Coffee dates. Kara bringing meals by. Then she had granted Kara whatever access she could give.

Game nights with Kara’s friends and family came next. She recognized Alex Danvers the government agent for an organization that was definitely not the FBI. The judgement was worked away from her eyes. Lena assumed she had passed some sort of test along the way. She didn’t ask because she didn’t think it was her business. After all it was Kara’s sister. Kara loved her and that was more than enough for her.

Her life became Kara. She would not have been able to recognize it if someone had drawn a picture of it for her years prior. Lena would have laughed out loud saying it was preposterous to have a social life where she enjoyed leaving the comfort of her office and her apartment. She thought she would rather have been caught dead then in her thick glasses with the black edges. But Kara saw her. The thing that always scared Lena was Kara’s ability to see her. It was different, to be seen. Lena was thrown by it. She was frankly unfamiliar with it. Her life was different now. She had Kara to thank for that.

It came back to Kara.

Kara Danvers. The woman who she called her best friend. The pulitzer prize winning writer who she swore she would do anything in the world for.

Kara Danvers wasn’t just Kara Danvers.

Her best friend was also a superhero. She had a cape and a crest. She was celebrated as Supergirl. The two people were the same. Lena didn’t know how to reconcile them. She berated herself over how stupid she could possibly be not to see her best friend in the one person who had a knack of saving her just when she thought all was lost. She had stared into those blue eyes as Supergirl, _Kara_, held her bringing her back to stable ground. She never let her fall.

Something in her chest burned. It was betrayal. But this time it felt different. There was acid that crept into her throat no matter how many times she swallowed. It was the one person who she thought she needed the most.

It was Kara. The woman who wore the softest colorful sweaters. The person who was constantly fidgeting with their glasses until they finally said what was on their mind. Kara was someone she sought out. She was on the short list. She had made it to Lena’s heart.

Kara Danvers.

It wouldn’t be a stretch of the truth to say that she meant the world to Lena.

She remembered the first time Kara had taken her breath away. It was an ordinary moment if there ever could be. The light had filtered into Kara’s apartment just so. It was an early morning which Lena did not resent. The world was still soft, the day waiting in the background. She was clearing through the last bits of sleep haze and Kara was there next to her. She had smiled and something in Lena’s heart awakened.

They had laid like that with space between them sharing the blanket and the morning for minutes without disruption.

Lena thought that she was lucky to see Kara like that. She had seen her cry, she had seen her angry. But this morning softness it held a separate type of vulnerability. It was natural. And for the first time that Lena could remember she felt at home.

Lena Luthor didn’t forget. She had always prided herself on her memory.

If she were to have a box for Kara it would be overflowing and bursting at the seams.

Kara Danvers wasn’t someone who fit into a box. It simply could not contain her and all that she was. Lena never tried to contain her. The only label had been friend then best friend. She didn’t want to think about it. It was impossible someone like Kara and someone like herself. She let herself believe that. It’s what kept few boundary lines in place.

Lena thanked herself for those few lines and walls which were left. She told herself she’d have to build them back up just as Kara had brought them down with her kindness, compassion and love.

It was twisted together. Lena was familiar with the darkness. She never thought it would come from Kara. It did. It crashed upon her pulling her away from the safety of the shore.

She didn’t know what to say. She knew she was angry but she clung to the opportunity to be articulate. This was her heart after all. Everything that had happened, had involved her. She was a part of this. That meant Lena had to be part of the solution to.

She had to say it even if that meant the end.

Kara had come into her office and she was supposed to be just another person. Lena laughs at herself to think that Kara could have been someone who left her life without a trace. She felt the gaping wound her presence and her secrets were causing her.

Kara entered her life. Now Lena had to exit. She didn’t know how to look Kara in the eyes. She couldn’t bear to hear her voice. Lena didn’t want to see the tears. She wanted it to be clean like everything else in her life. She was a Luthor, she told herself this was supposed to be easy.

Lena wasn’t ready. She had thought that she was prepared. It was a lie which she had bought into.

Her heart ached. She had lost something along the way and she was never going to get it back.

She reminded herself that Kara had done that. She had let Kara do that to her. National City was supposed to be a stop over. This was never supposed to be her life. She had deviated from her own story. Lena told herself that she was getting back on track.

She knew that it couldn’t be simple, not with Kara’s raw determination. She believed so fiercely in Lena when no one else did. She should have known Kara wouldn’t just let her sever ties. No, that would be too easy. This was a wound that was going to crack and bleed. There was no simple fixes for the heart. Not while the heart beat on. Lena felt as if a piece of her died when Kara’s secret was exposed. Even that she admonished herself over the cliche. She felt her heart beat in her chest. With each pump, each second passing, it served to remind her. This was her life. She had to face it.

Lena had to look herself in the mirror. This was her life.

She was in love with her best friend. The same one who didn’t tell her the one thing which changed everything.

What could she believe? Least of all herself.

*****

She hates that she has to do this. Lena is committed to setting it all in motion regardless of the pain she know it will cause her. Her boxes are bursting. The storm is upon her.

Lena starts with Alex. She seeks her out at the DEO. She spells it out, “I know Supergirl is your sister. What paperwork do I have to sign?”

She gives Alex credit for how quick she reigns herself in minimizing her reaction. It’s an awkward elevator ride to HR. The papers are together in a packet. There are the standard NDA’s and conflict of interests. It looks familiar from when she wasbrought in and after the Daxamites were defeated.

Her mind slips from what it could have meant to fill these papers out with Kara being not only the root cause but the reason why. It could have come from Kara. It didn’t. Lena reminds herself that with each scratch of her pen across the paper.

Lena hands the papers back over the desk to the woman named Pam who looked on with kind eyes but didn’t issue a comment of her own.

Lena has the last words with Alex before she leaves for Kara. “I”m going back to Metropolis.”

Her response is quick. “Does Kara know?”

Lena tilts her head to the side.

She fills in the lines. “She doesn’t know you’re here, does she?”

She shakes her head no.

Alex moves to put her hand out, Lena takes a quick step back. She doesn’t want this from her. It’s all too little to late.

She doesn’t push it and for that Lena is grateful.

Lena is half way down the hall when Alex calls out to her. She turns to the older Danvers sister. She recognizes the expression on her face. “You’re nothing like your brother. Kara always said that. She was right too.”

She swallows hard over the lump forming in her throat. She doesn’t need this, she didn’t need any of it at all. National City held this for her.

She manages to nod at Alex before putting one foot in front of the other. She knows that what comes next is going to take something from her. Lena wonders what even is left of herself to take. She’s been feeling empty for too long. She thinks on how Kara was one of the few people who filled her back up.

Betrayed. Lena had been betrayed by the same person who gave her the love she could never ask for. How was she supposed to give a voice to the thing she never thought she deserved. It wasn’t part of her plan. All her time in National City was supposed to be was a stop over. She’s found her heart here. The truth sends a shiver down Lena’s spine.

She pauses to collect herself before she knocks on Kara’s door. She tells herself that she has to do this otherwise Kara will follow her to Metropolis. She has to put it to bed. Nothing was ever started. They were best friends. That was the title they shared. It felt like so much more. Two words, eleven letters did not do justice to what they had grown together.

Kara opens the door before Lena’s hands come back to her waist after knocking on her door. Any other day she would find it laughable and cute. It’s not some other day.

Lena stands frozen in the hallway.

Kara’s glasses are askew on her face as if she put them on hastily and didn’t expend the effort to right them on her face.

Fear courses through Lena’s body. Kara’s eyes scan her as if she can sense she’s injured. It was nothing physical. A broken heart could not be spotted.

“Lena.”

She says her name with tenderness. It used to be music to Lena’s ears to hear Kara say her name like that, reverent and trusting.

The magic had run dry.

“I can explain.”

Kara moves aside, gesturing for Lena to come into her apartment.

She follows Kara but doesn’t put her bag down nor does she take off her jacket. She doesn’t want to linger. She already regrets not falling off the face of the earth. Kara was worth more than a text message or a phone call. There was such purpose to coming here in person.

Lena cuts Kara’s rambling off. She didn’t hear her words, to her it had been incoherent sounds. She tells herself she’s awake and she has to do this.

She sees the tears in Kara’s eyes. She bets that they are reflected in her own green eyes.

“I know.” She tries to clear her throat. She says it again. “I know you are Supergirl. I’ve already been to the DEO.”

Kara looks fragile in her apartment. She leans against the countertop. “You have?”

“I’m leaving.” She hates that her voice cracks. She doesn’t want to give Kara anything more.

“Lena.”

She blinks. Tears slip down her cheeks.

She looks to Kara, the pain etched across her face. Lena wishes she was angry. It would be so much easier to rip into Kara then see her like this. She was doing this to her. She didn’t think about what Kara had done to her as well. The damage had been wrecked.

“I’m going. I was never supposed to be here for long. You knew that up front.” Her breath is ragged. “Kara you could have told me. I thought you trusted me. I could have been that person.”

“I trust you Lena. I always have.”

“Not enough then. Am I just some Luthor to you?” Her family name tastes vile on her own lips.

She takes the steps to stand in front of Lena.

“You are not your name. I promise you.”

“Why? Why then Kara did you hide that part of your entire life? Was I not enough to get to see that? I interact with you, both of your selves. I’m such an idiot to think…”

Her voice falls off.

Kara’s in her personal space. She wished for this so ardently. To share a breath with Kara. She loved this woman. She had never said it. Lena didn’t want to be the one to ruin it. Maybe there was nothing there to be ruined.

She doesn’t shirk away from Kara’s gentle touch.

She whispers it. “I loved you.” She looks up into Kara’s eyes. She takes a mental snapshot of the moment, the two of them standing in Kara’s apartment with Kara’s hands cradling Lena’s face. It feels foreign now. “I knew better than to think we could have it. I loved you and it wasn’t enough it never was going to be.”

The truth echoes in her ears.

She takes one step back. Then another. Her hand is on the door. She looks back to the woman who meant the world to her. “Take care of yourself Kara.”

She leaves without letting Kara respond. She’s thankful she doesn’t follow her. She gets in the car. The miles carry her away from National City and Kara Danvers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise that this is not the end. There's more to come for these characters. I know that this chapter was angsty and painful but there has to be reason for the suffering. These two deserve so much more than they perpetually get.


	2. When you love someone you let them take care of you

Lena finds herself at Sam’s door.

She rings the door bell already regretting imposing herself.

Sam opens the door there’s a smile on her face. “Lena.” With a glance her lips form a line, Lena recognizes the look of worry in Sam’s eyes. She’s thankful that she doesn’t say anything. Sam ushers her inside.

Lena puts down her bag. Sam reaches for something in the cupboards. She puts two glass tumblers on the countertop. She speaks over her shoulder as she goes to the highest shelf, pushing this and that aside, “Ruby’s at a sleepover. I was going to crack this open anyways.”

Sam puts the whiskey which Lena had given her when she was promoted to CFO next to their glasses.

Lena thinks its remarkable that she’s still sober after the day she’s had.

Sam pours Lena a double. Sam picks up her own glass, sloshing the amber liquid to and fro. Lena can tell that she wants to ask her what’s going on. Lena wasn’t just someone who arrived unannounced. Lena knew that Sam knew that.

Sam holds her glass out to Lena. She clinks her cup to hers and drinks all that Sam poured her. She feels her chest burn. She puts the cup back down on the counter with more force then necessary. Lena could blame it on the so called liquid courage. “What do you want to know Sam?”

She thinks before she speaks. Lena gives her credit for this. “I’m charmed I’m your first stop out of National City.”

Lena pours herself another serving. She knows she should go slow. She doesn’t drink it right away. “What gave me away?”

“The plates.”

Lena nods.

“Are you back?”

She herself didn’t know. Her shoulders go up and down.

Sam reaches across the counter resting her hand on Lena’s forearm. It’s her tenderness which causes Lena to crack.

She has a hand over her face. She feels herself shaking.

Sam comes around the counter. “I’m going to hug you, okay?”

Lena nods before Sam’s arms come around her. She buries her face in her friends sweater. It’s wrong. She feels like she has no right to mourn a relationship that technically never happened. Kara and her were nothing more than friends. She tried to tell herself this. But the genius in Lena reminds her that a friendship wouldn’t hurt like this. Her heart would not have unraveled over a friendship. This was something more, whether she can give a voice to it or not. Whatever it was between her and Kara it was dead, she had made it that way. Lena had been petrified to be the one to ruin their relationship and step over the line they couldn’t come back from. But now that line was in the rear view mirror. She had been betrayed again, by the one person she never saw it coming from. Lena thinks she should have known better. Kara Danvers had proven herself to be different, she was her hero. Lena had been right that day in the elevator, her hands going numb carrying the bags laden with ice cream, it was better not to know your idol. Supergirl had betrayed her. Kara Danvers had too in a way she didn’t know if she would be able to recover from. Kara had her heart. The one that Lena didn’t know she had before she had met Kara. 

Lena will remember much later that Sam asked her. That with all the boundaries coming down around her, the person she had chose to come to respected her in her most vulnerable moments. She doesn’t know what she did to deserve Sam as a friend. But she’s thankful for her.

Lena’s the one to disengage and break the hug. She doesn’t have to look to know that she made a mess of Sam’s sweater. She’s distressed but Sam doesn’t mention it.

Sam fills a fresh cup of water putting it in front of Lena. She slides it closer. Sam watches as Lena drinks it. She refills it and asks a simple question. “Are you hungry?”

Lena’s stomach growls in response.

Sam pulls glass containers from the refrigerator. She fixes them both a plate putting them individually into the microwave.

The first plate she gives to Lena. “Eat.”

Lena listens. She doubts that she has any fight left in her.

Sam sits next to her and they eat in silence. It’s easy, it being the two of them. She tries to think back to when that was what it was.

Sam whisks away Lena’s plate slotting it into the dishwasher.

She looks at her friend. “Are we going to talk about it tonight or will it be tomorrow?”

Lena thinks its a nice touch that Sam gives her a choice in the matter. The talking is inevitable. She had shown up unceremoniously at Sam’s door.

She moves to get up. “Can we move to the couch at least? My ass fell asleep half an hour ago.”

Sam smiles following her out of the room, “That’s my girl.”

They are situated on the couch. Sam’s angled towards her. Lena has one legged tucked underneath her.

She exhales. “Kara is Supergirl.”

She doesn’t hear a response from Sam. Lena’s shocked. “You knew?”

Her voice drops.“Did everyone know except for me?”

Sam’s hand covers hers.

Her vocabulary fails her. “I feel so dumb.”

“Honey.”

Lena knows that tone of Sam’s voice is normally reserved for Ruby.

She pinches the bridge of her nose. She resents the tears pooling in her eyes. “I didn’t… I just didn’t think. Kara is Kara and Supergirl is Supergirl.”

Lena falls silent.

Sam’s voice intrudes on her internal monologue. “I thought you knew. I had suspected that something was going on between you two.”

Lena deflates.

“After everything happened and Rubes and I moved back here. I knew Kara would be there for you if you let her.”

“Sam.”

“Maybe you didn’t want to know. Don’t hate me for saying it. But the longer you didn’t know the longer she could be Kara and you could be Lena.”

“I don’t get where you’re going with this.”

Sam tries to be soft. “You are so much more than your name and maybe Kara didn’t want to force you into a box. Once you knew you would have to decide, she would become more than a person.

“Lena having those powers its intoxicating and terrifying at the same time. Just to know that you could literally do anything in the entire world. Even thinking about it makes me wake the hell up to the fact that I’m not human. For someone like Kara who does it day after day, she has to look herself in the mirror and she has to make the choice whether or not to put on the cape. I put it all down when I came back. But Kara, that’s her life. You’re part of that too.”

Tears stream down Lena’s cheeks.

“I know what it means to have you as a friend Lena. Kara does too. It was more though, wasn’t it?”

Sam doesn’t even need to ask.

She wants to laugh but she’s crying again instead.

Sam tells her that it’s going to be okay. She doesn’t see how it will be but she keeps that to herself.

She says it for Lena. “You loved her.”

It’s not a question. It’s in the past tense. Lena realizes that there’s where it all lies, in the past. She had put miles down. She had left. She doesn’t hate herself for it. She could barely look her best friend, her favorite person in the world in the eyes. She missed her all the same. Her heart ached for her. “Nothing happened.”

Sam calls bullshit.

“It’s over.”

She lets herself believe that it was something. She didn’t want to stick a label onto it. But in her heart she knows that it was something more than the title of best friends could cover. Kara was more than a friend. Lena didn’t know a title which could fit her.

Sam doesn’t suggest anything or come up with her own theories on what Lena should do next. Instead she guides her to the guest room, fluffs a few pillows and gives Lena a new toothbrush. This wasn’t something Sam could solve. It wasn’t an equation to be balanced or a proof to be worked through.

She let Lena know that she was there for her and she was just down the hall.

Lena had her own privacy. She didn’t look at her reflection as she got ready for bed. She wasn’t ready for that but nor was she ready for a day when she knew she wouldn’t see Kara Danvers.

******

Alex doesn’t hear anything from Kara. All Supergirl emergencies had been handled.

She goes to her apartment. She uses her own key not bothering to knock.

She finds Kara sitting by the window sill. Kara’s looking out into the night but she’s not really seeing it. Alex doesn’t know what her sister sees, whether that’s Argo or National City. She just knows her sister isn’t really there. One look confirms it.

When Alex had suffered her own breakup Kara had taken her home to Midvale. It didn’t work that way for Kara. Alex remembered when Kara said to her home was not a place but it was people. Home had a heartbeat. Staring out into the night Alex wondered if Kara heard Lena’s heartbeat. She wouldn’t know if Kara was straining, stretching her powers out for another person in her life who had left. Alex witnesses Kara stare out into the night looking but not seeing.

Alex sits next to her sister. She puts her arm around her. Kara falls into her touch.

They both remain silent looking out into the night.


	3. Heart Over Mind, Courage Over Fear

Lena settles into Metropolis. She stays with Sam and Ruby. The silence of her own apartment screams at her. She didn’t even last a night there. It wasn’t right. It didn’t feel like herself. It was foreign. She was trying to find her way back to her own person. She didn’t know who that was. She didn’t recall when she lost her either. All she knows is that she feels wrong. Being alone only magnifies and amplifies those feelings.

She doesn’t kid herself. She’s living with Sam and Ruby. She helps Ruby with homework but quickly learns that Ruby is humoring her with the questions. Lena bets its Ruby’s own way of including her and showing her that she mattered. She didn’t remark on it. She does buy Ruby new books. The day after each study session a package arrives. They were for Ruby. But they were also for Lena. She wanted to be a part of someone’s life. She told herself it could be anyone. Her mind strayed to Kara. She tried to shut it down before she felt her heart unravel. Weeks out, it was no longer a common occurrence. She knew how to ward it off. She kept it out of the office. It was a promise to herself that she refused to budge on. She implemented herself on new projects and embedded herself in the research and development labs. She told herself she could do better. She wanted to prove it to herself. She didn’t want to surrender. Having the last name of Luthor meant that failure wasn’t an option. There was nothing concrete Lena could attach success to. That didn’t stop her from trying. She was who she was due to hard work and smart decisions. She didn’t know where to put her National City experiences. She wanted it to be behind her. It had a knack of finding her in the present.

Kara gets reprimanded at CatCo. Snapper doesn’t do it during a meeting. He finds Kara at her desk after another bullpen meeting where she had pitched a redemption story.

“That’s the seventh story you’ve come up with that has the same archetype.”

“Excuse me?”

“Whatever’s going on,” He sighs before settling his weight on the edge of Kara’s desk, “It’s seeping into your work here. Sometimes a person messes up, that’s the end of the story.”

Her eyebrows come together.

“Being human means not being able to fix everything. This isn’t a perfect world. We would be out of a job if it were. We would have nothing to report on.”

She makes an effort to take his words in stride. “What should I work on then?”

“You’re the award winning writer around her. You can write about whatever you want as long as its not a heroes journey. To be safe, no vigilantes either, Gotham has us covered on that.”

“Okay.”

Kara recognizes that Snapper is surprised she doesn’t fight him further.

He stands up and adjusts his cuffs.

“Sir?”

“Danvers?”

“Thanks.”

He’s gruff. “Don’t mention it.”

He walks away, Kara looks at the unremarkable desk in front of her. There are no sticky notes with hints of a fresh story scattered about. She pushes her chair back. She was going to have to find it.

Outside Kara detects a familiar heartbeat that had been removed from her life for two months, three weeks, four days, seventeen hours, thirty seven minutes and twenty three seconds.

Kara zeroes in counting each beat. It’s so richly satisfying. She wonders if she’s making it up. She assumes it must be too good to be true. She wonders why Lena is in National City.

She doesn’t have a chance to ponder it as Lena’s heartbeat sky rockets, her ears are pierced by the sharp bellow Lena lets out.

Kara doesn’t hesitate, air is whooshing past her as she weaves around the cities high rises. Lena is falling. Kara is not going to let today be the day. Today was not going to be an end for Lena Luthor.

Kara flew faster, calculating her trajectory to catch Lena all while keeping her safe. Kara did the physics in her brain, slowing her body before she had Lena in her arms. She had thought about everything but what it would mean to have Lena cradled in her arms. Not to mention that Lena clings to her. Her face is over Kara’s heart. It’s a reversal for Lena to hear Kara’s heart thundering.

Lena remains quiet, her knuckles white around Kara’s neck. She’s curled into the girl of steel.

The one day she had been in National City it had to have been the day of her quarterly assassination attempt. She had yet to be bothered in Metropolis. There were bigger fish to fry. Here in National City she wondered if she had a target on her back pulsing in a wave length invisible to the naked eye.

She detests the poetic justice of it as Kara plants her feet on the ground in an empty wooded park just north of downtown.

She murmurs her name. “Lena you’re safe now.”

Kara’s arms are still around her. Lena removes her head from Kara’s chest. She doesn’t meet her eyes. She tries to get her legs to function normally. Kara has her arm around her shoulder making sure she doesn’t fall as Lena finds her footing.

Kara kept quietly telling her that she was okay.

Lena didn’t know if Kara was worried if she was going into shock or if she was actually going into shock. Everything about the situation was wrong. There had been no communication between them since Lena left Kara’s apartment and left National City. Now it was just the two of them.

Lena hears Kara ask. “Is there someone I could call for you?”

She’s fidgeting with her sweater trying to pretend that her hands aren’t trembling.

“Lena?”

She remembers Sam telling her that she had a full day and Ruby had a soccer match that afternoon.

“Can you call Alex?”

Lena is staring at the ground as she hears Kara phone her sister. It becomes a matter of time before a black DEO truck arrives.

She can sense that Kara’s watching her. She feels her attention on her. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Lena tells herself this. This wasn’t supposed to be how they saw each other. The expression on her face isn’t that of Supergirl but of her worried best friend. She can see her chewing over her words.

It’s tense between them. The effortlessness of their relationship was nowhere to be found.

It’s separate from all the silences that Lena had grown to know back in Metropolis. This silence held its own weight. There was something in the air between them. It could have been all the maybes that existed in separate universes. What could have happened. What they could have been. It wasn’t what they shared. It wasn’t nothing that Kara saved her. She never asked to be thanked. Lena was grateful but she wasn’t able to put a voice to it. Here she was standing with the woman who was her best friend, the one who had her heart. Kara didn’t say anything, she didn’t want to break things further than they were already broken. Lena had come to National City without telling her. Kara had come to the mental agreement that if Lena wanted to talk to her she would. The current situation was purgatory. She didn’t want to violate whatever they had had any further.

They stood in the park like two strangers with a past. Nothing could have been right.

Alex’s black DEO issued truck comes upon them. Lena moves to get in on the passenger side.

Alex gets out of the car and moves to where her sister stands.

Lena watches out the windshield. Alex and Kara’s heads are bent together. She feels as if she’s intruding but she doesn’t look away.

Kara walks with Alex back to the car.

Alex rolls down the window. Kara looks straight at Lena. “Stay safe.”

Kara’s gone, flying into the clouds before Lena can utter another syllable.

Alex’s window goes back up. She buckles her seatbelt and starts the car. “Metropolis?”

Miles separate Lena from Kara again. She’s thankful this time. It’s a different feeling than before. The anger has run dry.

She stares out the window thankful for Alex’s careful driving. She knows that she probably has a million other things to do so her being there with Lena instead of having one of her DEO people do it means something. Every little thing means something. Lena knows if she thinks too hard it will crush her. The day was more than she had expected. She should have known coming back to National City, even if it was just one series of meetings, was a bad idea.

Lena wanted to be fearless. That was something she had always admired in Supergirl. She could be knocked down but she always got up. That felt like a lame reduction now. Lena knew what Supergirl looked like when she faltered, she never wore a cape when she did it. Lena had seen Kara break. It had pained her too in a way, to see her friend scrabbling for purchase trying to get the words out which dragged her downwards. Kara Danvers knew pain and she knew suffering. Lena wouldn’t have been able to guess how intimate Kara was with loss. She was more than an orphan. She was so much more than the words Lena was capable of finding.

Alex interrupted her inner thought. “I didn’t expect to see you today.”

“Being rescued wasn’t on my itinerary either.”

Alex is serious. When Lena had first met her she was intimidated by Alex. There was a way in which Alex commanded confidence and respect that Lena could not help but notice. It traced back to the first time they met. She was the calm in the storm, more thought than Kara’s too often punch first think later action set. Lena had saved Alex’s life during her first press conference in National City. It wasn’t a score to be matched. Alex didn’t measure that way, not with Lena.

“How’s Metropolis?”

Lena’s not sure she’s up for the conversation she sees lurking up ahead starting with that single question.

She sighs. “It’s Metropolis. It’s a lot of the same thing.”

“Do you like it?”

She feels like she’s traipsing through a mine field. “It is what it is. I’m staying with Sam and Ruby.”

“Good to know.”

Alex navigates the car off the interstate to a local high way. It’s heavier now then when they got in the car back in National City. Lena knows its not some sudden mysterious change in gravity. It’s the words which are not being said. They’re there somehow.

Lena could say something like it didn’t have to be this way or that she missed National City. There’s the mass of possibilities clouding about in her brain.

She doesn’t want the conversation to get back to Kara. But she knows she owes Alex something. Not that there relationship was a transaction but because of all the people in the city, Lena had asked Kara to call Alex. Alex had come through. Lena could do the same for her. She deserved that, answers to the questions that loomed on the horizon no matter where she looked.

Alex pulls into the Sam and Ruby’s neighborhood.

Her voice is weak. “Can this stay between us?”

Alex pauses at a stop sign and looks at Lena. It reminds Lena of the day at the DEO signing the papers as she told herself she was moving her life forward.

Alex nods. “Sure.”

Lena swallows once then again. Alex parks the car in Sam’s empty driveway. She doesn’t move to get out of the car.

Lena stares out the windshield. “I had to leave. Staying would have killed me.

“Everyone in my family goes crazy. It scared me to think that that was going to be my breaking point. I was afraid of turning into a homicidal maniac like my brother. The last person I want to be is him.”

Her words come to a stop. She looks at Alex. She’s giving her her full attention. There’s something priceless about that.

Alex waits.

Lena focuses on her breathing. “So I left.”

She wonders if she should make a joke. But nothing strikes her as remotely funny about the situation. She knows its a god damn mess.

It begins to rain.

“Kara loves fiercely.” Lena’s not sure she’s heard her correctly. “I don’t think she even realizes it. She has the biggest heart in the entire world if not the galaxy.”

The steady patter of rain is the background to the picture that Alex paints for her. “She’s good at helping everyone other than herself. Kara kept such a huge part of herself hidden for years. The effects of that come out in strange ways.

“When Maggie and I broke up, I didn’t resent Maggie. Her honesty was admirable. I’m glad things ended the way they did rather then ten years from now a kid being in the picture and Maggie hating what her life had become. She did what she had to do. I don’t hate her for that.”

“Alex.”

“None of us are perfect Lena. I know what it’s like to keep something earth shattering locked inside so deep that no light can touch it. I never thought in my wildest dreams I’d find happiness with another person, least of all a woman. I thought I was broken. I had come to terms with it. Do you know what Kara said after I came out to her?”

She’s not sure she should hear the answer.

“She apologized. Kara didn’t say: I love you anyways or that she always knew. She was sorry that things had been about her since my family had taken her in. She never wanted things to revolve around her secret. She was worried about what she had done and how that affected me. I never doubted that Kara loved me. The one thing she wanted for me was more.”

Alex doesn’t say anything about the tears pooling in Lena’s eyes.

“Lets go in, I doubt you want to be alone right now.”

When Sam gets back with Ruby she insists that Alex stay for dinner. She can’t say no to the grin stretching across Ruby’s face.

Lena watches Alex light up as she tells Ruby stories on what she’s been up to throughout the meal. She makes it seem effortless. She catches Sam’s eyes at two separate occasions looking at her, a question in her eye, her brow pulled together. She’d explain later. She has to explain it to herself too.

Alex leaves when Ruby starts her homework.

Lena follows her out to her truck.

Alex settles into the drivers seat.

“Thanks, by the way, for coming when Kara called and then stopping the rest of your day to stay with me.”

She feels like her cheeks are burning.

“I’m your friend Lena it means I’ll be there when you call.”

Alex made it sound simple. Lena couldn’t comprehend how it could be that easy. She didn’t question it. It surprised her that she had people who would pick up the phone for her without thinking what they would get in return.

“Let me know when you get back to National City?”

She fakes a salute at Lena earning a chuckle.

Lena watches Alex reverse out of the driveway and onto the street. She waits until the car disappears from her view before going back inside.

Sam shuts her computer when Lena enters the room. “Is there a reason Alex Danvers joined us for dinner tonight? Is it the same reason why you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

She collapses onto the couch. Sam nudges her knee.

“The meeting didn’t go so well, did it?”

“I didn’t make it to the afternoon round. And for the record I hate balconies.”  
“Lena.”

“She saved me.”

“Kara does have a way of doing that.”

She exhales loudly. “Kara didn’t take the time to shed her stupid pastel button up or her slacks. She just acted.”

“She saved you.”

Lena nods. Kara had put it all on the line for her, again.

“We stood there after she landed us in a park we used to go to. It was just us.” She puts her hand through her hair. “She kept telling me that I was okay. God I couldn’t even stand on my own two feet. I would have held onto her for forever…”

Her voice trails off. 

She remembers what it felt like in Kara’s arms. It was the safest she had felt in months. She resents herself for that.

“You should let her know you’re okay.”

“Sam.”

“Seriously its the least you can do. I’m not telling you to call her or anything like that. I’m just saying you owe her that much.”

She wasn’t wrong. “Fine.”

Lena taps out a message.

_Thanks for the save today. I’m back in Metropolis safe. Alex should make it back to National City sometime tonight._

She gets a response less than two minutes later when she’s retired to what she’s taken to calling her room but was once Sam’s guest room.

_Always. I’m glad to hear you’re okay :)_

Lena puts her phone face down. Her heart is racing.

She starts her nighttime routine. She mentally ticks through the things she has to do the following day. She has meetings, emails and answering the questions that came with every attack on her being. She could chalk it up to having the Luthor last name. What her mind kept coming back to was Kara. She was void of anger. She had run cold. Lena wants to laugh at herself. It wasn’t that it took just one fall and save for Kara to be redeemed in her eyes. But it was more than the singular act of Kara saving her life. It was that Kara had come without a word spoken or sent between them since everything went down. It was that she had not spent precious seconds to stop being Kara Danvers and to become Supergirl to save her. She saved her as Kara Danvers not Supergirl. Then it was how Kara held Lena. Her soft words assuring her that she was okay as they stood in the park just the two of them. There was her parting wish telling Lena to stay safe. Lena had nothing to be mad at Kara at. She had come. She had been there. And she had stayed.

It was more than Lena knew how to ask for.

She sat on her bed trying to summon confidence. It wasn’t over. Kara had not asked Lena for anything but for her to be herself. This wasn’t a person to give up on. Kara had never given up on Lena, not through the silence nor the strife.

Lena forces herself to breathe in and then breathe out. She keys in her lock code. She stares at her thread with Kara. Nothing. Then something.

Lena sends it before she deletes it.

_Next time I’m in National City I’ll let you know._

She comes to a decision. Her life was better with Kara in it. Did it have to be in the past tense?


	4. Tomorrow Will Always Be Tomorrow

Lena found herself yearning for Kara.

She didn’t give a voice to it. Recognizing it was step one. That was what her logical brain told her. She resented that.

She remembered it. What it felt like to be in Kara’s arms, how she felt so achingly safe. Kara was her calm in the storm. She didn’t know if she was the start of it though. Lena thought about her. Kara occupied a portion of her energy and attention. She didn’t know how to reconcile all the things she felt. It had been one of the reasons she had left National City for Metropolis. She felt herself being tugged backwards. This wasn’t some sort of story that she was familiar with. She had always assumed that she had known how the story went.

She texted Kara the next time her business brought her to National City. Lena didn’t ask any questions or say to meet up but she still got an emoji or two in response from Kara. They warmed her heart. It was easy to be happy about the little things like Kara’s enthusiasm and joy coming through an electronic message. Kara’s personality was palpable even when they weren’t in person or talking to each other. Lena thought that Kara was dynamite, not in the destructive sense but in the ability to make something beautiful out of something ordinary.

From the very beginning Kara had been different to Lena. She took her breath away without ever seeming to try to. She was a woman who had entered her office with Clark Kent when her life seemed to do everything but cooperate. Lena remembered saying that she wanted to make a name for herself outside her family. Clark had remained stoic but Kara, Kara’s entire face lit up with recognition. Her eyes had snapped up to look at Lena. Their connection was forged in that single moment.

She was honest when she told Kara that she hoped she would be seeing her again. Lena wasn’t sure what her words meant then and there. It would have been was to play off as a professional thing, two women trying to make a name for themselves perhaps even working together. There was the unspoken option, like for once in Lena’s life she wanted to be social with the woman who walked into her office in Clark Kent’s shadow. She found herself wanting to know her. Of course what happened first naturally was Lena giving her life story and then some. She didn’t know what it was about Kara which made her feel like she could talk about herself. It didn’t have to be senseless or cohesive but she found herself telling Kara things she hadn’t told herself. Hearing the sentences aloud constantly surprised Lena. She didn’t know she was capable of friendship that wasn’t related to her families company.

Kara had a selfless streak about her. Lena had never been blind to Kara’s beauty, even dressed in muted clothing. It was apparent bur Kara had kept proving herself to be more than a pretty face. Lena’s respect for her grew.

Now with the months between them and Kara’s secret being exposed she found herself drifting back to Kara. She didn’t know if she should be mad at herself for falling into old ways. Kara was back in her dreams.

Lena shared a closeness with Sam. They were more similar than they let on. They both had something to prove to their family but even more so to themselves. They were both driven. There had never been a chance for them romantically. Lena had explained it after the Reign debacle. Sam was one of her favorite people in the world. She knew there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for her. But there was a line neither of them crossed. Lena wasn’t sure if what she felt for Sam before National City had been admiration or attraction. She was mesmerized by how she took care of her daughter, that she loved her so fiercely there was no room to argue against that single fact. She loved Sam like a friend. She didn’t question that Sam returned that too. Lena didn’t know what it means to have a loving family member. But if Lena did, she knew she would be lucky to have someone remotely similar to Sam Arias.

There was a moment where Lena knew. It was when Sam and Lena in the lab and there were the definitive windows of Reign lording over Sam’s body.Lena had leaned in putting her forehead to Sams. She looked into her eyes and it was an encapsulated closeness. She had no desire to do anything else but share a breath with her. She was determinate to free her friend. Butt that’s what they were, friends. The ache she felt each time she witnessed Sam’s eyes flash red made her rally. But there was never a part of her where she wanted to be with her beyond sharing space. It was a friendship. There was nothing else Lena wanted from her.

Kara had been a different story. Each time they got close Lena only wanted more. She craved the time she spent with her especially when it was just the two of them. There the first time she had gone to Kara’s apartment and Alex had arrived. Lena felt a sharp twang of jealousy run through her until Kara clued her into the fact that Alex was her sister. The jealousy faded away. She never thought to bother why she had felt that way. She moved past it onto the next thing.

Kara made her feel more. Everything was intensified. Lena should have and could have known that what she felt for Kara was more than what the label of best friends maintained. She didn’t feel that way over her other friends. She was protective, sure. When Lena cared she didn’t let anything get in her way. But Kara existed in her own category. She had a way without ever asking.

The communication shared between them is sparse. Lena tells herself to keep it that way. She’s warring with herself. She doesn’t want to get hurt in the same way she did before. But Lena doesn’t think that that would happen again. She knows about all of Kara. Kara knows that she knows. The playing field is even in a sense.

Lena leaves herself a series of breadcrumbs. She tells herself that she could come back at anytime. Retreating was an option that she was keeping open.

They weren’t on stable ground. Lena wasn’t casting out lines like she did when she first met Kara. It feels like a lifetime ago that Lena sought Kara out in Catco towers to invite her to her own gala. At the time it had made perfect sense. She had not questioned it. It felt natural to take the time out of her schedule to personally invite Kara. She wanted to. There was always want involved when it came to Kara. That’s where she stumbled.

Lena didn’t want to see Kara, not yet. She had a version of Kara she thought of that was in her mind. She visited her in her dreams. She wasn’t ready to reconcile that Kara with actual Kara Danvers. Because Lena knew no matter how many times she practiced a speech of all the things she wanted to tell Kara the words would never come out as she needed or intended them too. It had taken all of her the day she had left National City. It had left her empty. She knew that those type of moments of raw emotional courage where not a dime a dozen. They simply didn’t just happen. There was so much which had led her to that moment. She didn’t have it in her to face off like that, perhaps ever again. That moment was in the past.

It was steps. Lena was comfortable with texting. One night she finds herself calling Kara.

She hears air whooshing past on the other side of the phone, she wonders if Kara’s flying.

Kara’s voice is harried. “Lena, are you okay?”

“I’m okay.”

“Are you sure.”

Lena sits down within Sam’s home. “I am.”

She hears Kara take a breath.

There’s a silence shared between them.

She reminds herself that she’s the one who rang Kara.

“Can we talk?”

“Always.”

The word makes her shiver. It’s familiar and foreign at the same time.

She tries to barrel past it. “How was your day?”

“My day, uh, it was okay.”

“Just okay?”

“Well Snapper yelled at me. And then, well, I had to put out a fire and I can’t get the smell of burning plastic from my hair.”

She finds herself smiling.

Kara hesitates. “Was that, I mean, is this okay?”

Lena’s sure. “It is.”

Kara babbles about this and that. There was a dog at the coffee shop that morning which she had texted Lena a photo of and now she follows on instagram. Then she tells Lena about a new documentary series on Netflix she’s excited to watch the next episode of later that night.

She is about to remind Kara to breathe when Kara steals her breath away. “I missed this, us I mean.”

Lena is gaping slack jawed into her phone that is pressed to her ear.

Kara realizes what she has said. She doesn’t take it back. “I made this weird.”

She’s not capable of making tangible sounds still. Kara’s voice reaches her. “I don’t want to mess this up.”

“You won’t.”

“I would hate myself if I did it again.”

There’s a tremor in her voice. “The lying part?”

Kara leans against the doorway in her apartment between her bedroom and her living room. The exhaustion has set in. “I made you leave.”

“Kara, is that what you think happened?”

She doesn’t understand how their conversation can be held in two different cities, with each of them clutching a piece of technology to their ears. Lena feels like she’s opened herself up and given Kara her heart.

She has it.

Kara’s trying not to cry. She catches the falling tears with the back of her free hand.

“I hurt you Lena. I hate that I did that. I promised I would be there for you and I told you I would save you, always. My secret, Supergirl it practically ruined me.

“I’m afraid it’s going to consume me. I know that I am Supergirl. I am where I am because of everything that happened since I came to Earth. I never understood the pain I could cause without ever lifting my finger until that night. I scared myself. ” She stifles a sob. “I saw it in your face. I did that. I hate that that was me and that I caused you to feel that way.”

It’s a truth Lena never expected to hear.

She sits with it. She runs her fingers through the words, playing them over again in her brain.

She could say that it’s over. That this was all she ever needed to hear from Kara. For all the pain she had imparted on Lena this was it. Her words could serve as a bookend to their relationship. Everything else was pages written in between.

Lena felt like she was standing on a ledge. She felt the metaphorical wind whip at her sides. Her fingers reach out to grasp for something. The words, they mattered.

“Kara?”

She picks her head up and pinches the bridge of her nose. She’s eternally grateful that Lena hasn’t hung up.

She thought through what she could say. Her heart told her that she loved Kara Danvers. It was undeniable.

Her voice shakes. “You were home.”

The truth is a gift that Kara receives.

She tries. “I could be again.”

“What if we can’t?”

“Is that what you want?”

Lena feels her heart beating in her ears. They are out on the precipice.

“Can we try?”

“Lena?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s all I’ve wanted.”

The truth sinks. It’s an agreement for a new beginning.

Kara thanks Lena in earnest before they get off the phone. The words fill Lena and buoy her up. It’s not what she thought would happen. She’s satisfied in a way she hasn’t ever felt before. It was thanks to Kara Danvers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd be lying if I said I know what I was doing. That being said your kudos and comments mean the world to me.  
Until next time - thank you.


	5. This is How I Let You Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is named after the song, 'This is how I let you down' by the Franklin Electric.

Kara feels like screaming her lungs raw. Her skin prickles and everything going through her head is just too damn loud. What she wants is to be out of her body. She feels like nothing can contain her and the anxious energy coursing through her veins.   
****

She’s flying, more like surging through the clouds after a day when she felt like she couldn’t do anything right. She feels her tears freezing to her cheeks. To be human would mean feeling the physical pain. She wasn’t human though. That had always been the problem. Too strong or too loud. Not enough normal. So Kara had hid. She had come so good at hiding she didn’t remember what it was like to let her alien powers take over. At the end of the day she would never be human. Of all the things she could do in the world that wasn’t one of them.

Her vision is blurry from tears as she sits with her knees to her chest between her bed and the wall. She doesn’t have to look to know her hands are shaking as she dials out a number.

Lena answers on the third ring. “Hey I was just thinking of you.”

She’s not met with a verbal response.

“Kara?”

Kara takes a deep breath squeezing her eyes shut, “Hey.”

“What’s wrong?”

Kara doesn’t even know if they have reached a spot in their relationship again when she can just call Lena and unload. “I just, can you talk to me?”

“Yeah, yes I can do that. Can I ask, are you safe?”

Her question hangs between them for a moment before Kara answers. “I’m okay I’m just having an anxiety attack.”

“That doesn’t equate to okay Kara.”

“Can you please just talk? I need to focus on something right now.”

“Sure, yes, I can do that.” Lena fills the air between them trying to come up with things to say. She talks about L-Corp projects and then Ruby’s science fair project. She keeps talking even if she thinks she’s talking nonsense.

Kara’s on the other side of the phone, her knees brought to her chest focusing on Lena’s voice. It was calming her to pay attention and not have to listen to everything in her head telling her she would never be the person she was supposed to be.

“Kara?”

Her voice isn’t as strangled. “Yeah.”

She doesn’t say that she’s run out of things to say. “Any better?”

Kara nods but remembers that Lena can’t see her. “I think so.”

“When I was in boarding school and I felt like a panic attack was going to crash into me I would put my hand around my bicep, my thumb on the inside of my arm. I’d try and find my pulse. When I felt it I’d focus on that, beat after beat.”

It’s the first time Lena’s said that aloud.

“It worked for me when I couldn’t get up and go some place else.”

Kara feels like a shell of herself. She’s returned back to her body but its like her gas light is on warning her that she’s dangerously close to empty.

She stumbles through her words. “I don’t even know if I can call you like this. Today was absolutely horrible. Someone got injured and I was supposed to save them. Nothing went right. I feel like my failures are suffocating me.”

Lena says her name softly.

“I shouldn’t even be calling you. Alex is on a date with Kelly and she’s happy again. She’s practically glowing. I can’t interrupt that. You were the one I wanted to call. Even though I’m probably alienating you again and making an even bigger mess of things.”

Lena stops her. “You’re not.”

“I’m not?”

“Kara I’m your friend it means I’m going to be here for you, for good or bad.”

Kara sobs shake her entire body. Lena can barely hear her. “You don’t know how much that means to hear you say that.”

“The time when you saved me and I told you that Kara Danvers was my hero, that hasn’t changed.”

“What if I can’t do it?”

“Kara I’d love you if all your powers were gone tomorrow morning. What makes you special isn’t what you do when you wear a cape, it’s who you are as a person.”

Lena hears Kara’s muffled cries. 

“You have lost so much Kara. I know that now. Just getting up every day makes you a hero in of itself.”

It’s later when Kara asks the question. “Are we going to talk about this tomorrow?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are we going to pretend this never happened?”

Lena takes stock of the situation. Kara’s voice is hoarse. She doubts that her friend has cried that hard in a long time. She wishes she could give her a hug. There is a fresh calmness permeating, perhaps it’s exhaustion setting in or it’s like the phone call has put them in a new place.

“I’m going to remember this. I think you will to.”

Kara makes herself vulnerable yet again. She already feels raw. “I don’t want to be the reason you go away.”

She always finds herself being surprised at how Kara Danvers could steal her breath away without trying.

“I’d hate myself if I caused that again.”

“Kara all I’ve ever wanted is to be there for you like you’ve been there for me.”

“Really?”

“I promise.”

“Lena?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Kara doesn’t say I love you when they hang up. Lena doesn’t have to hear it to feel it. It’s in the fact that Kara called her. It’s the honesty she brought to the table. It wasn’t that it was easy. It was far from it. Kara Danvers had trusted Lena Luthor. Lena thought it was an honor to truly be there for the woman who put the world on her shoulders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a direct result for me feeling anxious enough tonight so that my chest hurts. I'm not sure it will stay up bur I wanted to put my energy somewhere so I wrote this. Sometimes at the end of the day all a person wants is someone else to be there and listen. This is one of those days.  
Thanks for reading and sticking around for this story.


	6. Finding Our Way

Kara’s shy with Lena almost like she’s emotionally hung over from their conversation when she called while she was having an anxiety attack. Lena assumes that Kara is wondering when the rug is going to be pulled out from under her. For the life of her that’s not what Lena wants. She doesn’t have an elaborate gotcha scheme in the works.

If there was one thing that Lena was sure of was that vulnerability was beautiful. There was no price to attach to it. The numbers didn’t count properly. It didn’t matter what her last name was or who the person she was talking to identified as. She thinks back to the first person she had ever come out to. Lena knew that something about herself. She wasn’t a quote unquote late bloomer. It was rather that the press didn’t find out until she was in her twenties that she happened not to be straight. Lena had known. It started there. Then she had to say it. She felt like it wasn’t true until she heard it aloud. She was scared and hungry at the same time.

She wasn’t sitting in her own room. The irony was that she was coming out to the girl who she had a crush on. The woman who made Lena’s truth undeniable to herself.

Jamie was sitting crosslegged on her bed her back resting against the wall. Lena was sitting with her legs swinging off the side of the bed.

She had told her that she wanted to tell her something and that she didn’t want to chicken out. She had wanted to say it a half dozen times before. But each time the words got stuck. She had told her she had something to say on purpose. Jamie asked her what she had wanted to talk about.

Lena looked at her. The look she was met with wasn’t probing. She thought that maybe, just maybe, this is what true concern could look like. Jamie was worried for her. The thought brought a blush to her cheeks. She took down her hair and put it up again.

She doesn’t look at Jamie when she says it. Her voice is small as if the size of her words could be minimized. “I’m gay.”

She barely hears her response. “Okay.”

Lena’s legs are swinging. She doesn’t feel like she has control over her body in the moment.

Her eyes find Jamie’s. She hasn’t moved. She searches her face. She’s waiting to be laughed at or a slur to be thrown at her.

It doesn’t come.

Jamie accepts Lena. She says that she’s still her friend and it doesn’t change things. Lena doesn’t say how grateful she is. She doesn’t cry until she’s in the safety of her own room.

She remembers Jamie. It’s one of the few kindnesses she was afforded in her life before coming to National City.The last time she saw Jamie was before she transferred schools. It had been something benignly normal.She’s not interested in looking up Jamie now. Lena knows that her memories belong in that time period with that experience. It’s not that its stuck in time. It’s timeless in a sense. That was the first time Lena’s vulnerability had been taken in and fostered rather than spit back out and used against her.

She had had the chance to be that person for other people. There were the times she got to be there for Sam. There was the time Lena bought someone coffee only for them to stop at her table and open themselves up. Saying it was the first time someone had done something nice for them in months and that it meant the world to them. There was recognition in those moments. Lena did what Jamie did for her. She met the other persons eyes. She dared to see and bear witness to what they had inside them. There was a glimmer of a tear but also a shine of hope. The world wasn’t kind no but Lena had always wanted to be someone she could be proud of. Vulnerability was never cheap and she never overlooked it. Lena may be a multi-billionaire but she thought of the moments of shared vulnerability as her richest. She didn’t have to say it. It was a truth she kept next to her heart. 

She asks Kara. “Can I see you?”

Kara hesitates before emphatically saying yes.

Lena is sitting at a table tucked away in a neighborhood cafe watching as Kara Danvers walks toward her.

Kara gives her a small wave and a big smile.

Something in Lena’s chest flutters.

When Kara is a step away from the table she wonders is she should get up to hug Kara. She squashes the urge letting the boundary stay in place. She had warned herself off from jumping in. Steps were required.

The rest of the world fades away with Kara sitting across from her.

The first hour they don’t talk about anything real. There are minor details discussed, all the things they had been texting about including projects and small office mishaps.

They have to squeeze past the pleasantries. There’s what’s going on beneath the surface. This is the first time they’ve seen each other in months. Lena had ignited it. Kara had been patient through and through. She could have flown to Sam’s house the minute after Lena asked if they could see each other. She didn’t though. The respect she held and practiced for Lena surpassed her own want.

“I think we should talk.”

Lena raises an eyebrow. She doesn’t reply sarcastically asking if that’s what they had already been doing. The expression on Kara’s face is serious.

Kara tells herself it’s not a test.

“Can you tell me where you’re at? I don’t want to cross any lines.”

They’re having _that _conversation.

Lena stills her hands which were idly playing with her empty coffee cup.

“It’s good to see you Kara.” She takes a breath. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“I do. I know it hasn’t been easy for me and I doubt it was for you either.”

Kara’s glasses slip down her nose as she rubs her eyes.

“I appreciate that you didn’t push the lines.”

“Like I said Lena you don’t have to thank me. It’s the least I could do.”

Lena wonders if they are at a stalemate until Kara speaks again. “Having you in my life makes it better. I would do anything to have you in it.”

They find themselves quiet and gazing at each other.

Kara’s super serious. She’s a force to be reckoned with.

“You answered the phone, that day weeks ago. Thanking you isn’t enough. Seriously. I don’t want to ask anything else of you. I just, you were perfect.”

There’s a current between them. Lena doesn’t swim against it.

“I’m here for a reason.”

Lena goes on. “I want to be your friend Kara.”

She nods.

She’s not sure how to fill the space. It’s a different set of emotions than she routinely deploys. Kara seemed to have a way of bringing out a separate side of her.

“Lena I will always be your friend.”

It’s there. They have agreed. They are there together.

Lena tells herself to enjoy the time there with Kara. This is her best friend. It was never settling. Lena loved Kara. And Lena knows that Kara shares a love for her too.

There’s more. But there was always going to be more.

Lena says something which gets Kara to laugh and her whole life is brighter. She treasures how Kara looks at her. And today, today she is seeing her best friend for the first time in along time. Lena takes in the good and she breathes it in. She lets herself have this and her best friend Kara Danvers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the feedback. Seriously. It means more than what I can put in this box. I am keeping the previous chapter. My anxiety has been acting up as of late. That chapter has a lot of me within it. It's staying. 
> 
> For now this is the end for this story. There will always be more for Lena and Kara. But sometimes it's just being around the person you care about which means the most of all.


End file.
